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October 3 - 9, 2008 www.independentweekly.com.au The Independent Weekly 34 sportsbeat Sportsbeat magazine available in hotels and clubs every Friday Ponting calls for peace R Chloe Saltau ickyPonting stamped his authority on his country’s defence of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy this week by saying it was up to him and his Indian counterpart, Anil Kumble, to set the tone for a peaceful series, and that his success or failure in India – the one glaring void in his Test resume – was in his own hands. Though the Australian team conquered what SteveWaugh once termed its last frontier four years ago, defeating India on its own soil for the first time in 35 years, Ponting could not share in the triumph, missing the first three Tests with a broken thumb and returning for the fourth, which Australia lost on a spinning minefield in Mumbai. It was an emotional time for the captain, whose average in modern cricket’s headquarters is an unflattering 12.28. “There is a bit of a void in my international career here in India, no doubt about that,” said Ponting, who shed tears after the famous series- clinching victory in Nagpur. “There are hopefully a lot of runs ahead for me here. I will work really hard make sure I’m as good as I can be. It’s all in my hands, I know what I have to do to have success here and I know the mistakes I have made in the past. “Hopefully, I play well and hopefully the team can continue with the success we have had in the subcontinent in the past 10 years.” Ponting said he and Kumble had reached an understanding on the conduct of their teams in Perth last January, following Harbhajan Singh’s racial abuse report and the Indian skipper’s Storm a light wind in Melbourne’s footy cup So far in Melbourne Storm’s long quest to win recognition and even to be recognised in its home city, it has: won the NRL premiership in just its second season; fielded the current once-in-a-generation team stocked with some of the game’s finest players; and, most recently, claimed martyrdom in the bitter and high-profile grapple-tackle debate. Yet for all the hearts and minds that have been won, they may as well have asked Storm Man to wander along Bourke Street with a sandwich board saying, “Please Love Us!” Indeed, the only thing that has really improved the Storm’s visibility in recent times was the wrecking ball that brought down the grandstand at its training ground in Carlton, meaning tram commuters down Royal Richard Hinds Parade now get a glimpse of the anonymous stars going through their paces. This week, then, represents another chance for the club to fulfil its objective of creating a self- sustaining place for league in Australia’s second-largest city. Sunday’s grand final against Manly at Sydney’s ANZ Stadium will be the first of the Storm’s three consecutive grand finals played a week after the AFL grand final, which means that, once the last celebrating Hawthorn player staggers from a local nightspot, the Storm should take the spotlight. “The AFL should die down byWednesday,which should give us a good opportunity,” chief executive Brian Waldron said early this week. “It’s just unfortunate we’ve got to go to Sydney on Wednesday (for Thursday morning’s grand final breakfast).” Last year’s grand final attracted strong ratings in Melbourne, with a peak audience of 876,000 and 49 per cent of viewers in its timeslot — an amazing result even if many tuned in at 7.30pm expecting to watch 60 Minutes. This year, the compromise between the commercial night kick-off and the media-driven return to a barbecue-friendly afternoon game could reduce that audience significantly. Not that the newly conciliatory Waldron – a $50,000 fine always will refine your diplomatic skills – was complaining. “Five o’clock on a Sunday afternoon?” he mused. “You would probably like to think there are a lot of youth out there who will watch the game.” But will many of those kids be wearing Storm jerseys, as Matt Geyer’s three children woreHawthorn jumpers to Saturday’s AFL grand final? Geyer says that remains in the hands of the television gods. “We need TV to get more on board,” he says of Channel Nine, which usually refuses to suffer the same ratings hits showing the Storm in prime time as Channel Ten has done with the Swans in Sydney. Storm captain Cameron Smith will be watching this week’s grand final from the sidelines. “The newspapers are doing pretty well. The radio is doing pretty well. Some AFL identities are becoming Storm fans and talking about the Storm a bit. But we need the TV coverage; that’s the last bit of the puzzle that will help us go that step further.” – Fairfax famous Bollyline statement, accusing the Australians of not playing in the spirit of the game. Though Ponting has all but given up on resurrecting the gentleman’s agreement on close catches that disintegrated in the heat of the Sydney Test, he expected the spirit of those talks would continue through this series. “We (the captains) are responsible for our teams and the way we play our cricket, that’s the bottom line. We all understand what is acceptable and what’s not, and that is not even what the media believe to be acceptable or the umpires or the referees, it is whatwe see as being acceptable amongst our group,” Ponting said. “He (Kumble) was the one There is a bit of a void in my international career here in India, no doubt about that. that didn’t want to continue with (the catching agreement) after the Sydney Test for one reason or another. “For me, it is almost like flogging a dead horse, to tell the truth. I go into every referee’s meeting wanting to play the game that way and almost every other captain in the world now is not responsive to it. I will have a think about that in the next few days and see if I think it’s the right idea to bring that up again.” Ponting will be aiming to replicate the result of 2004 with a far less experienced team, while on a personal crusade to exorcise his demons against Harbhajan. The Indian spinner has dismissed the Australian captain eight times, his dominance stretching back to plays will be the least experi- enced member of a bowling attack with no Test credentials in Indian conditions. “Over the last 12 to 18 months when we’ve been missing some of our experienced players, we have still managed to show that our best is good enough to beat anybody,” Ponting said. “We know that at the moment they are a more experienced side than us but if you look back to last summer in Australia, which is when the whole rebuilding phase began, we still managed to play a brand of cricket that was good enough for us to win the series. “Then wewent to the West Indies and the same thing hap- pened there.We’re confident the new faces will be good enough to stand up.” – Fairfax the epic series of 2001. “I feel I am a lot better equipped these days than I was back then, with so many tours to this part of the world,” Ponting said. “I didn’t trust my technique enough. Since that first Test, really everything started from there, I was always trying to find a different way to play, fearing that one delivery, I guess. Those are the lessons I’ve learned and that is what I have spoken to the guys about this week, working out a way that is going to work for you and then sticking to it.” The tour begins in earnest when Australia plays an Indian board XI here, a game that will clarify whether Bryce McGain or Jason Krejza is to be the specialist spinner. Whoever